Gabriele Ferro dies at 88: Rome Opera remembers a ‘cultured, refined, rigorous musician’
Rome Opera recalls a long association with the house, from Anna Bolena with Leyla Gencer in 1976/77 to Norma at the Baths of Caracalla in 2012.
The Italian conductor Gabriele Ferro has died in Palermo, aged 88. Born in Pescara on 15 November 1937, he died on 29 October 2026. He was honorary music director for life of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo and worked with many of the leading musical institutions in Italy and Europe.
The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, which announced the news “with deep emotion”, described him as one of the protagonists of Italian and international conducting.
From Anna Bolena to Norma
Ferro had a close bond with Rome Opera, where he conducted numerous productions from the 1970s onwards. They included Anna Bolena in the 1976/77 season, directed by Filippo Crivelli with Leyla Gencer in the title role, and Semiramide in 1982/83, directed by Roberto Guicciardini with sets by Arnaldo Pomodoro and June Anderson as the title character.
He went on to conduct La battaglia di Legnano in 1983/84, directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi, and Il ratto dal serraglio in 2010/11, staged by Graham Vick. In 2012 he returned to the podium of the Rome orchestra for Norma at the Baths of Caracalla, directed by Andrea De Rosa.
“A cultured, refined, rigorous musician”
Francesco Giambrone, the sovrintendente of Rome Opera, said he felt great sorrow at the death of a man to whom he had been bound by a long, deep and longstanding friendship. “Gabriele was a towering figure in the cultural life of Palermo and of our country, and throughout his long and prestigious international career he always took on projects of great scope,” he said.
A cultured, refined, rigorous musician, extremely curious and attentive to new musical languages, who shaped wonderful years at the Teatro Massimo.
Giambrone said he remembered vividly, and with gratitude, the years when Ferro served as music director during his own time as sovrintendente in Palermo, recalling his great love, extraordinary passion and dedication for the theatre of his city. Rossini’s Guglielmo Tell, which opened the 2018 season, and Schumann’s Il Paradiso e la Peri the following year “remain in my personal memory as milestones of interpretation, vision and lucidity”, he added.
